Chapter 19 #2
She threw her hands up. “If trusting the Grim Reaper is one of your decisions, then maybe!”
I gave her the darkest look that I could. “Stop calling him that.”
Morgan shook her head in a way that hinted she was fed up with the conversation, even though I was still boiling on the inside. “You’re already starting to glare like him, you realize that?”
Squaring my jaw, I walked past her toward the S section of the sophomore lockers. I was fed up too.
Of course, though, she picked up her pace to join me at my side. “I’m worried about you—”
“Why? Because I’m not acting like my normal, prudish self just because I’m spending time with a boy?”
“It isn’t the fact that he’s a boy,” she insisted. “It’s who he is.”
Almost as if our conversation summoned him, I spotted Hudson farther down the hallway.
He stood beside the vending machine with all the good snacks, rummaging around in his backpack as if he was looking for something.
My steps faltered at the sight of him, and I forced myself not to recall the night before. At least I tried.
You’re lucky the others were around then. I probably would’ve kissed you if they hadn’t been.
Even now, I could practically feel his thumb against my lips.
And then I faltered for another reason. A girl stood beside him, with blonde hair and brown roots, her heeled booties bringing her to his height.
She leaned up to him, red lips pulling into a grin like they were sharing a secret.
I didn’t recognize her, but I was instantly curious who she might’ve been.
Someone who was brave enough to enter the personal space of the Grim Reaper.
Was this the girl he was waiting for during lunch the other day?
She also looked weirdly familiar, but I couldn’t place the face.
Morgan’s gaze found where mine had settled, and she narrowed her eyes on Hudson. “Speak of the devil.”
I stepped up to my locker and focused on the combination. “Let’s change the subject.”
“But I’m not finished.”
“I am.” I yanked on my lock, unable to fight my groan of frustration this time when it didn’t open.
“Look who it is,” a new voice drawled, instantly raising goosebumps. “It’s the Settler sister.”
When I turned around, I found the two seniors who’d picked on Morgan and me last time, plus another new girl. I didn’t know either of the girls’ names. Wes looked as massive as he had that day, with biceps that had to be as big around as my head.
Wes smiled broadly, stopping directly in front of me. “You know,” he went on, gaze sliding to me. “I thought after our first greeting in the hall, you’d have stuck your brother on me. At the very least, would’ve tattled to Principal Ollie-pop.”
“You don’t mean that much,” I told him with a strange buzzing in my ears.
My leftover anger with Morgan fueled my boldness now, because Wes was the last thing I wanted to deal with.
Aside from that, something about the situation felt different than last time, but I couldn’t place what it was. “Not enough to waste my breath on.”
Morgan’s eyes bugged wide, no doubt thinking I was crazy.
Wes snorted a little, turning to the girls. “I’m not, huh? Then what made Bishop step in that day?”
Instinctively, I glanced at the vending machines to find Hudson and the red-lipped girl staring at our group with intense eyes.
He looked to me, and I gave my head the smallest of shakes.
Him coming over here might’ve saved us last time Wes and his bundle chose to pick a fight, but now, for some reason, it felt like adding fuel to a fire.
“He acts like he’s so much better than everyone else. Better than us. So what made the Grim Reaper so intrigued by you?” He reached out and nudged my shoulder with a shove that was a little too hard to be friendly, but not rough enough to make me knock back a step. “Virgin sacrifice, maybe?”
That was when the blood, which sang furiously in my veins, burned hotter underneath my skin. I curled my hands into fists. “Leave us alone.”
“Or maybe,” he went on as if I didn’t speak, “it’s revenge. For what your brother did to him freshman year. Now, that’s a movie I’d watch.”
I thought I heard him wrong. I heard “brother” and “freshman year,” and my brain filled in the gaps neatly. Landon’s swollen eye. His split lip. Landon, sobbing at the kitchen counter. But then my world hiccupped, the real meaning of his words sinking in. “What my brother did?”
But again, it was like I didn’t speak. Maybe I hadn’t. Maybe my whirling thoughts only sounded so loud in my head.
“But if Bishop is interested in you, then there must be something I’m not seeing.
” His eyes raked up and down my frame, taking in every inch of me like I was on display for him.
“I’ve been thinking about that day a lot since then.
How you and I have unfinished business.” He reached down and slid his hand over my hand, and I jerked away from the icky caress.
“I think I’m going to follow through on my promise last time.
Let’s see if we can fit you into that locker, huh? ”
Wes wrapped his meaty hand around my shoulder, and it was almost alarming how large it was. We’d been in a stance much like this before, him threatening the exact same thing. Before, I’d followed my old adage. Keep my head down, keep my mouth shut.
Sometimes it’s better not to fight back, I’d told Hudson back then, when he’d stepped in the first time. Better to turn the other cheek.
His response rang in my ear now, a voiceover to the sight of Jaden’s head bouncing against the lockers and Morgan flinching from the girls. Remember what I said about a backbone?
Staring into Wes’s ugly eyes, I did what I wanted to do last time.
I brought my knee up, slamming it between his legs.
Wes went down with a screech of pain, like a building toppling over, and that was when all hell broke loose.
Morgan pressed both of her hands to her mouth as she gasped, which made her an easy target for the girls to grab.
They latched onto Morgan’s backpack strap and jerked it, causing her to lose her footing.
She cried out when she hit the ground, rolling away from one of the girls’ boots as they kicked out.
Wes climbed to his feet much quicker than I thought he would’ve and latched onto me before I had a chance to react.
Both of his hands closed over my upper arms this time, and with as much force as he could, he pushed me into the lockers, hard enough for my head to knock against the metal with a painful, metallic thud.
And then suddenly his hands were ripped from me, before he had a chance to fold me into an origami pancake—or see if I actually could’ve fit inside a locker.
Hudson appeared without a sound, but he moved almost faster than my eyes could keep track of.
He grabbed Wes’s wrist and twisted the jerk’s arm behind his back, shoving him face-first into the metal doors beside me.
Hudson didn’t even look like he struggled. “Picking on girls again, Wes?” he demanded, voice a lazy, bored drawl. “Come on.”
Wes tried to shove against Hudson, but Hudson only twisted his wrist further, causing the guy to wilt against the locker in pain. “Let go.”
The girls who’d been kicking Morgan halted for a second in their assault. “Stay out of this, Hudson,” one of them said.
Hudson looked down at Morgan before cutting his gaze to me. “Looks like I’m already in it.”
The girl who’d been standing with Hudson near the vending machines chose then to saunter over as well, her heeled boots clicking against the linoleum.
She slung her arm over the mean girl’s shoulders, squeezing.
Her dark gaze found mine, and for a moment, I thought she was going to join in on Wes’s side.
“Why don’t you guys pick on someone your own size? ”
Wes glanced over. “You offering, Churchill?”
“You couldn’t handle me,” she retorted, barely even batting an eye. “But next time, if you want to sound tough, don’t say it while someone has you pinned against a locker.”
Showcasing his muscle, Wes burst free from Hudson’s hold and staggered away from the metal doors.
Hudson moved to position himself between Wes and me, his back close enough to me that my nose nearly grazed his T-shirt.
I held my breath until my lungs began to ache, but the tension was too hard to breathe around.
Wes glanced at his friends, letting them bolster him. “Either join in or get out. Otherwise, this doesn’t involve you.”
“I know you’re missing a few brain cells, but I’ll try to be clearer.” Hudson stepped into Wes’s personal space. Though Wes was way more muscular, Hudson easily had four inches on him, looming like an imposing figure. Like the Grim Reaper. “You touch her, and you deal with me.”
I went from focusing on Wes to staring at Hudson’s head, lips parting.
Everyone in the circle turned to look at the little sophomore hiding over Hudson’s shoulder, but I couldn’t look away.
His blond hair fell over the collar of his black jacket, his shoulders straight without a hint of bending.
The declaration made me freeze, and the low, threatening way he’d said it, but there was no ignoring the tingle that bloomed in my chest.
“Now, you tell me,” Hudson went on, tilting his head once more. “Is it worth it?”
The red-lipped girl shoved past the two Wes minions and offered a hand down to Morgan, who took it with a heavy dose of hesitation. Once she got Morgan to her feet, she dusted her hand down Morgan’s bag, swiping away the grit from the ground.
“You know what I don’t really get?” Wes asked with a slow drawl, raising his eyebrows.
There was something skin-crawling about the way he did it, totally unlike how Hudson looked with that expression.
“Why you’re over here. You hate underclassmen as much as any other senior.
In fact, you hate everyone. So, what’s different about sister Settler? ”
“This little reason called none of your business.”